For Cassin’s auklets, robin-sized seabirds of the northeast Pacific, the winter of 2014 was a disaster. Over the course of a few months, more than 9,000 washed up on beaches from British Columbia to California. Almost immediately, scientists hypothesized that the deaths were somehow related to a massive marine heatwave, known as the Blob, that went on to ravage the coastal ecosystem from 2013 to 2015.

This Labour Day weekend, Stefan Navarrete packed his black 2003 Jetta wagon, hit the road and drove west. Though it’s only an eight-hour drive from Nelson to Squamish, he was already feeling the impending change of pace.